Scampo

[glauer]

Had my first meal at Scampo a few nights ago. I do not feel it merits a full review but I want to highlight a few things as I heard good things about the place and others might be tempted to go.

1) The menu is weird. I could not really identify a theme. Italian seems most dominant, but a lot of other stuff pops up. The design mess of the printed menu is reflective of the weirdness of it all. Mozarella "bar"? A separate "Spaghetti" section, as appetizer or what? On the top a row of "specialty" breads incl naan, followed by pizzas?

2) Service was nice, but a bit pushy towards increasing the bill. And quite clueless. Wine had to be ordered by numbers (sic!) like in a chinese takeout and was poured with the bottle resting on the glass.......

3) They only give diners some breadsticks at the beginning. When I asked for some bread with the Mozarella and carpaccio/proscuttio dishes I was told we could order some of the specialty breads. After showing disapproval more breadsticks were served. The sticks themselves are well flavored, but seemed a bit stale.

4) They seem to use pretty good ingredients, especially when it comes to meat (while the tomatoes on the Pizza Margherita were devoid of any flavor or texture). And the meat dishes were well cooked. But everything suffered from some sweet sauce or other sweet ingredient. Brussels sprouts were pretty nasty - nothing was left of bitterness, but a creamy sweet mess. With all the sweetness everywhere and the wild mix of the menu this reminded me of Cheesecake Factory, though at a higher level.

5) The crowd was weird. A little bit steakhousy with a few quite loud and obnoxious large tables.

Overall the place is quite short on sophistication, both regarding food and service. One can pick a reasonably tasty meal but for the money they charge one can get so much better and more interesting meals in Boston. Having said that, they must do something right: The place was fully booked on an early week night. My feeling is they do well with the same customers that make the expensive steakhouses such a big success.